Girls claim sexual assault by Illawarra school teacher

By
ANGELA THOMPSON

Two young girls who claim they were molested by an Illawarra school teacher disclosed the alleged abuse later that night, as they were preparing to go to bed and swapped stories.

Mark Forbes denies five charges of sexually assaulting two young girls.

Two young girls who claim they were molested by an Illawarra school teacher disclosed the alleged abuse later that night, as they were preparing to go to bed and swapped stories.

The girls were staying overnight in the guestroom of former Albion Park Public School assistant principal Mark Robert Forbes and his wife on March 27, 2013, as their own parents attended a concert.

In a recorded police interview played during Forbes's trial at Wollongong District Court on Tuesday, the older girl described Forbes touching her "here [indicating her chest], there [her thigh], and then he went into my shorts", as she sat on a bed beside the 53-year-old.

She said the younger girl, who had been sitting on Forbes's other side, later told her that Forbes was "doing the same kind of thing" to her, at the same time.

The girls were reading in a shared double bed later that night, when the younger one claimed additional interference from Forbes, the older girl further claims.

Forbes, 53, has pleaded not guilty to five charges of indecently assaulting a child and a single charge of aggravated sexual intercourse with a child aged under 10.

Defence barrister Susan Oliver, acting for Forbes, suggested during cross-examination on Tuesday that her client's handling of the older girl was confined to her shoulder, upper arm and "perhaps" her hip - never her nipple area, as the girl alleges.

The girl disagreed that some the the touching was necessary to stop her slipping off a railing along the bed.